Pantomime
by Mystic25
Summary: If you want to mess around with somebody else's life, you need to get your stories straight…
1. Chapter 1

"Pantomime"

Mystic25

Summary: If you want to mess around with somebody else's life, you need to get your stories straight…

Rating: T for Hurt/Sick Sam parody and non-sick Hurt Sam parody.

A/N: Don't judge until you've read it all…

 **xxxxXxxxx**

 **Pantomime** – _noun._ theatrical entertainment, mainly for children; a simple farcical drama including mimicry.

 **xxxxXxxxx**

 **Prologue**

 _"The little kittens and rainbow tweenager prologue bit was just a lure to the real meat of my story-"_


	2. Chapter 2

**Part One**

 **Amory, Mississppi**

 **Twenty-Four Hours Ago**

Sam opened his eyes to the soft insides of the Impala's back seat, and to the sounds of Dean fixing the carburetor. This was something that Sam never attempted himself, not knowing the difference between a socket wrench, and a _sock._ So he left it all up to Dean.

Sam yawned hugely, and very much like a puppy awoken from a nap right before petulance set in from being conscious. He stretched his arms out high above his head. This, of course, naturally produced a coughing fit that rattled his eyeballs like spare change stolen from somewhere where spare change was kept. The coughs hit him with such a medium amount of force that he hurled himself back against the seat of the Impala, hands buried deep into the thick leather in a bone-knuckled grip.

Dean raised his head from his position all up inside the engine block of the car, greased up like a man who knew how to work mechanically. His Sammy Senses tingled erratically.

"Sammy?" The size five socket wrench clamored uproariously into the wires of the car battery, short circuiting it instantly as Dean ran to the Impala's opened back left door.

"Sammy!" Dean took in the sight of Sam braced back against the bench seat, coughing with a deep, medium force, with total fear in his eyes. He knelt down and held his brother's neck in his hands. "Hey, Sammy, kiddo, buddy bear!" Dean gripped worried fingers into Sam's wrinkled plaid shirt that smelled like it had been slept in and not washed in a week. Also, there were some phlegm smelling patches near the elbows that Dean couldn't account for. "Tell me what's wrong!"

"No I'm fine!" Sam said to Dean reassuringly. "Please, I think it's just a lil cold!-" Like a perfectly timed stage cue, Sam's nose began to drip little snot drips of yellow and green from both nostrils like a leaky faucet.

"A _cold?"_ Dean barked a laugh like a seal, or a junkyard dog. He stood up and slapped the wind out of Sam with one hand.

" _Guh!"_ Sam said in offense, rubbing at his ribcage.

Dean looked at him in amusement "Bitch."

"Shut it jerk!" Sam hacked coughs into his hand, mixed with drips from his snotty nose.

"No way _bitch!"_ Dean shot back with emphasis. They, of course, still called each other these names, they just wanted to do it _way_ more than they was normal for them for some reason.

Sam huffed at him, muttering one last " _jerk"_ under his breath in petulance. He blew his long flowing, unruly bangs up in a ruffled formation.

"Damn dude, you get a prissy _cold_ and you act like that?" Dean laughed again, bracing one hand against the car door to keep himself from falling over into the dirt.

"Die can'd help dit, D'n!" Sam said in a voice that greatly exaggerated his clogged up nasal passages that had chosen that moment to clog up on him. He pinched his nostrils closed, then released them, smelling his own boogers. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and found a pathetic looking piece of wadded up tissue. He blew hard onto it's crumpledness; feeling the waistband of his pants side off his hips from the force.

 _Damn._ Sam worried. _I lost weight._ He thought worriedly again about something else because worriedly was the _only_ way Sam ever thought. He hadn't been able to eat anything for five days except for a single packet of week old McDonalds salad croutons he found under the seat. Dean had been too busy eating his artery clogging burger or pancake tower at every diner they hit to even _notice_ how Sam was getting only enough nutrients to sustain a piece of paper. At least until they both climbed inside _Baby_ and the worn leather and closeness to his brother, and the broken whatevermacalit inside the hood had made Dean be his big brother again, and watch Sam like a hawk of some kind.

Sam tried to breatheagain,but it felt like bullies had pounced on him and jammed quarter sized pebbles up his nostrils. Sam made a softer ' _guh'_ in protest at his lack of breath. His had used the only tissue he had, so he burrowed his nose on the fabric of his shirtsleeve.

"Sammy you sound like crap-on-toast," Dean said matter-of-fact as he watched as Sammy tried to blow his nose in his _sleeve._ Kid couldn't use a tissue to save his life. His sleeves were always caked in some sort of nasal slime, so much so that Dean had taken to rolling up Sammy's shirt sleeves three times each time he helped Sammy get dressed every morning.

Sam bitchfaced at him not really knowing what crap on toast tasted like. But, he was sure it meant something gross and nasty, and oh, all this talk was making his stomach queasy! Why did he think that?

Without warning, Sam shouted "look out!" to Dean before he crashed onto his knees on the dirt and upchucked the small amount of stale croutons and sips of water he had managed to consume.

 _Can croutons go stale when they're just stale bread?_ Sam thought as he threw up and then threw up some more.

Dean pulled Sam up from the dirty dirt and lifted him up into a bridal carry up and away from the sickness. He laid Sam down gently across the backseat, pillowing his jacket underneath his head, stroking his hair and humming "Smoke on the Water."

Sam opened his eyes, feeling grit the size of boulders in them, he took a swipe at them and called out for his brother: "D'n."

"Right here Sick!Sam Dean reassured, fingers idly tracing Sam's long hair with a purpose to reassure Sam that he wasn't alone.

Sam sighed in deep contentment and started to cry from the relaxation produced from Dean's presence.

"That's my boy," Dean said with a smile and a whistle at Sam. "C'mon Sammy, let's get you someplace warm. It's 75 degrees out here, too cold for your delicate senses!" He closed the door carefully, hitting the top of Sam's head only once with a gentle 'bonk' knocking his brother out to a peaceful sleep. He raced around to the driver's side and turned the key. The engine started, and he put the car in 'reverse' then in drive, then in another gear. He drove like a speed demon, avoiding the roads and driving in the soft tilled dirt when he could. He turned rear view mirror to face Sam's now sleeping face completely, watching him snore sickly, ignoring the screeching of cars he almost collided with.

"Don't worry Sammy," Dean said with sorrow "I'll fix you!" He pushed the gas pedal harder with his foot.

 **& &&&spn&&spn&&&&samndean&&&&&spn4lyfe&&&&&&&&spn4eva&&samndean&&&&&winchesterthang&&&&&&**

The hotel had only one room with two tiny single beds, but Dean was too sick with worry to care. He blew into the parking lot, flung open the doors, grabbed Sammy by the shoulders and carried him bridal style again into the motel. Sam's eyes opened blearily from the movement, rolled up and back, and left and right in his head as he searched for something familiar because the movement scared him like all things did when he was sick. "D'n _D'n!"_

"Take it easy kid. M'right here!" Dean reassured laying Sam on the bed, underneath the covers in one fell-swoop.

Sam's stomach rolled like a bunch of hamsters all competing to get on the same hamster wheel.

"Sammy, what's the matter?" Dean's brow furrowed deep enough to plant a garden in. "You look like a bunch of hamsters are rollin' around inside ya."

How did Dean know his _thoughts_? Sam nodded furiously at Dean, blinking a bunch of times, like Morse code that signaled: _"Deany, Dean, Dean!"_

"Now you're thinking how I did that," Dean said aloud what Sam was thinking to himself making Sam's eyes go wide from fever induced confusion/fear. "You have a fever lil brother, you need to rest, you have pneumonia I can _feel it-_ I'll make you some soup!"

"Dn' stop shoutin'," Sam said, raising sick hands to his ears, rolling onto his side. But he had no balance since he was grappling with a fever and a cough of medium force. So he ended up rolling off the bed and landing on his legs, hearing them break instantly because he hadn't been eating the Flintstone Vitamins with Calcium for strong bones like he should have.

"Ow!" Sam said sharply, unable to move. " **D'N!"**

But Dean had walked out of the motel to the local diner across the street to get Sam his soup without Sam himself noticing. Sam groaned in pain, which only exacerbated his medium cough making him gag and cry weakly. He had no strength to get up, so he remained on the floor, crying, waiting desperately for Dean to come back and rescue him before he succumbed to the elements.

 **& &&&spn&&&&spn&&&&samndean&&&&&spn4lyfe&&&&&&&&spn4eva&&samndean&&&&winchesterthang&&&&&**

"Thanks hun," Dean balanced two Styrofoam trays on top of each other. One had a Quadruple-By-Pass burger with extra wild hog deep fried bacon and five pounds of fries; and the other was a container of broccoli soup and Cool Ranch Sun Chips (Sam's favorite combination). He paid the cute diner waitress at the register who was smiling and flirting at him.

"Sure thing," The waitress took the money from him with another smile and handed him back his change. "Take good care of your brother."

Dean looked at her, confused. "How'd you know I had a brother?"

She pointed to the items balanced on top of the teetering pile in his hands. "Broccoli soup and Cool Ranch Sun Chips? That's what I feed my brother whenever he gets a cold or stomach flu. He's seven now, mom got a late start."

"Nothin' wrong with that," Dean flashed her the Winchester Smile.

"How old is your brother?" the waitress asked, instantly swooning at his beautiful face.

"An infant when he's sick," Dean smiled sweetly at the thought. "But he's my little guy."

The waitress smiled even more, eyes going dewy. "He sounds adorable." She pushed an extra bag of Cool Ranch Sun Chips at him. "On the house for him."

Dean looked at her in bafflement, wrinkled two dollars already held out for her in payment. "You mean _free?_ "

She laughed again. "Yeah, but it's not charity darlin'." She reached out and touched the stubble on his cheek that hadn't seen a caring female hand since his mom and before Lisa had been brainwashed away from him.

"It's love," she said. "Just like how you love your brother."

A single tear of the deepest emotion slid down Dean's face as he took the extra bag of free Cool Ranch Sun Chips for Sam. He walked away before the clerk could fully seem stream down his cheeks.

 **& &&&spn&&&&spn&&&&samndean&&&&&spn4lyfe&&&&&&&&spn4eva&&samndean&&&winchesterthang&&&&&&**

"Sammy!" Dean opened the door wide, then remembered he was shouting and Sam hated it 'cause he hated that kind of thing when he's sick. So he lowered his voice to a whisper and a question mark. "Sammy?" He stepped inside the hotel room, not seeing Sam anywhere.

Fear instantly surged in Dean's heart at the trouble a sick, fevered, delirious Sammy wandering around the two lane low traffic road alone could get into. "Sammy!" He walked all around the twenty square foot hotel room, even looking under the bed and behind the shower curtain. But there was no sign of Sam.

He walked in worried frustration over the giant bump in the crappy motel carpet before looking down and finding his pen that he dropped yesterday. He picked it up happily, but soon it fell _unhappily_ as he saw the shape of his brother lying all crooked on the floor, both legs clearly broken.

"Oh My God!" Dean fell to both knees beside Sam. He gently rolled Sam onto his back, feeling his legs break only once more (thank gawd) before he was able to see Sam's terrified, tear streaked face.

"It's all going to be perfectly fine Sammy!" Dean told a bold faced lie as he reached down and manipulated Sam's legs into a lying down position to save time so he could just slide him back onto the bed easier. "M'helpin, M'here, M'mhmm."

 **& &&&spn&&&&spn&&&&samndean&&&&spn4lyfe&&&&&&&&spn4eva&&samndean&&&&&&&winchesterthang&&&**

Sam blinked his eyes open in a sense of disbelief because his last memory was himself lying on the floor in a terribly uncomfortable position. This brought tears to his eyes because he had thought for one terrifying moment that he had been kidnapped by another ghost-wendigo-vampire-alien (well, maybe not alien, they weren't real) hybrid that always lurked in small town hotels and honed in on him likes bees honed in on a naked man covered in honey. He never really questioned why this was, or why they didn't go after Dean too; he was always too busy being kidnapped like Daphne from Scooby Doo to do more thinking and less screaming for Dean to save him from the latest thing that he fell/stepped in/or was turned into.

He kept blinking up and down, up and down – and the world looked like a broken filmstrip from his third grade class. That was the year where the bullies picked on him and called him eight-years-old, and stole his lunch money until Dean beat them all up with his sword and gave Sam a million bologna sandwiches to eat for the reset of forever.

"D'n?"

"Don't move Sammy!" Dean rushed over to Sam with a pot of instant soup bubbling in his hand, noodles hard and straight because he was a failure at cooking when he was afraid for Sam because of a cold and broken legs. "Just, don't move!" He pulled a funnel out from the pocket of his jacket where he kept his hunter's knife, sword, battle ax, and mace, shoving them under the bed after they all fell to the floor in a clang of noise that made Sam jump and claw his way up the curtains.

"It's okay Sammy," Dean removed Sam from his clinging grasp on the curtains and carried him back over to the bed one handed, balancing the pot of soup in his other hand like the pro that he was. "Don't be scared buddy, angels are watching over you."

Sam blinked again, afraid of the word: "angel." "D-D-D _-"_

"Shh," Dean sat on the edge of the bed and petted his brother's hair and laid him down on the stack of pillows as tall as Mt. Kilimanjaro on the bed so that Sam actually got _taller_ lying down than sitting up. "Drink all of this good soup, okay little brother?" He placed the funnel carefully into Sam's mouth and began pouring it down his throat. "It's Bobby's secret recipe, he got it from a Shaman medicine man two towns over."

"What's it called?" Sam croaked.

"Cup-A-Noodle," Dean said the name reverently and watched Sam repeat it in the same manner because Bobby was an expert on _everything_ and knew a great many things that they had never even heard of before.

Sam continued to swallow the soup going down his gullet like grease in an old coffee tin, his final chokes telling Dean that he had had enough. Dean poured the broccoli soup from the diner down his throat next, and it burned, and the broccoli got jammed half in and half _out_ of his throat, but Dean called him a "bitch," so he kept quiet and waited until he could breathe again.

"All gone!" Dean removed the funnel from Sam's mouth and wiped it with the packet of Wet Wipes he kept up his sleeve, looking on adoringly as Sam instantly passed out from the warmth of the amazing concoction. Dean tiptoed up off the mattress and tiptoed over to the sink, washing the pot and funnel and half watching Sam, and half humming that tune by Taylor Swift that he secretly adored.

He reached over and grabbed the sheets off his own bed, ripping them up into small pieces. He then wove them into a perfectly shaped cast for Sam's broken legs, slipping them on over his jeans, humming more Taylor Swift as he did so. He was amazed at how innocent and _bloody_ someone looked with a head cold and two broken compound femurs set with only ripped up bedsheets. Dean blamed himself for Sam's weak bones; he had failed in his attempts to get his 33-year-old brother to take his Flintstone Plus with Calcium. That, and Sam was a stubborn ass.

Dean thought all this affectionately as he brought in parts of the Impala's engine to weld together to keep himself busy so he wouldn't over worry about Sam. He kept this up for hours at a time, until Sammy had to use the bathroom and he had to help him not be scared of the sound his broken legs made when he walked.

On one of his many rounds with Sammy, Sammy cried out that his face was burning. Dean reached into pajama pocket, pulling out his thermometer. He gasped at the reading: "99.3", _almost_ a fever! Dean immediate sprang into Big!Brother!Dean!OhYeah! action and coaxed his bedraggled little brother back into the bathroom.

Dean cranked on the faucet from a bear claw tub that was missing one of its front bear claws so that it wobbled like a boat in a turbulent storm. The tub quickly filled with rust flecked water, sloshing out onto the tile below.

Sam stared glassy eyed at Dean from his precariously balanced position sitting on the toilet and leaning against the towel rack. He mumbled incoherent things as Dean fiddled to undo the buttons on his shirt, cursing his dexterity that decided to take a dirt nap at the very moment he needed it the most to help a brother out.

"Okay Sammy, this will be cold, so don't be frightened-" Dean warned in a soothing-I'm-going-to-do-it-anyway kind of voice.

"Dude-" Sam blinked through eyes the color of hot electric stove burners, head cocked to one side like puppy with an earache. "did you just say _frightened?"_

Dean suddenly closed his expression down and thought hard for a moment. "I. don't. _know-"_ he blinked like he tried to clear away a hangover that he'd forgotten about.

Sam stared at him like some of his bricks were loose. "You don't know?-" Sam repeated Dean's words like he had misheard him. His eyebrows knit together in confusion, watching as Dean stared at the thermometer that he still clutched in his hand like he would a bloody, severed, finger. "Dean, _what_ is going on with you?"

" _Me?"_ Dean said. "Nothing-"

" _Really?"_ Sam returned, sounding more lucid than he did a second ago, which made more sense than being struck down by a temperature that wouldn't put a field mouse out of commission. "Because you sound like you snorted brown acid-"

"I do _not."_

"Dean you just told me not to be 'frightened' of _cold water_." Sam took a step forward and elbow planted into the bathroom floor, tripping on a loose string of sheets wrapped around his legs like mummy bandages. _"What the hell?"_

"I don't know man!" Dean threw up his hands in frustration, chucking the thermometer away from himself like it was a live grenade. It broke into pieces against the cracked tile that had been cured an egg yolk yellow from stains. "It's like I was suddenly possessed by something."

"You mean like a _demon?"_

"No man," Dean answered like he _wished_ it had felt like demon possession. "It was like I knew what I was doing, but I didn't _know what I was doing."_

"That, doesn't make any sense _-_ " Sam sat back on the tile, rubbing at his bruised elbows and yanking off the torn scraps of fabric from over his jeans.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Dean ran a frustrated hand through his hair, looking towards Sam with wide eyes at him standing on what he thought _should_ have been two broken legs. "I should've known something was up when you were whining in that diarrhea diaper voice earlier about a friggin' runny nose." He walked out of the bathroom, Sam following him.

"I wasn't whining," Sam interjected, a little off put.

"Dude, you were saying _guh_ , what kind of word is that?" Dean returned, not off put at all about addressing his sole right to have topped Sam's point. "Winchesters get possessed, stabbed, or killed Sammy, we don't break our damn legs from falling out of bed, and we don't get _sick._ Name the last time either one of us has had a cold?"

"Actually, I can't." Sam stared at the tub of rust filled water, wondering just what the hell would have gone on next.

"See?" Dean returned, "I can't either. And if we _did_ we wouldn't be a little bitch about it," He reached into the weapons duffle and pulled out his silver Colt, sliding the full clip into his hand then pushing it back into the gun to give his hands something to do besides want to feed Sam _broccoli soup and Cool Ranch Sun Chips?_ What the hell?

"Do you think Chuck is writing again?" Sam threw something out of left field.

"Chuck wouldn't write this way." Dean insisted, stashing the gun into his jacket with a satisfied extra addition of weight inside the pocket. "And he _sees_ the future, he can't _create it_ , remember? And if he did he wouldn't make it this doushy-"

" _Becky?"_ Sam suggested.

"Sam, Becky watches Rom Com in adult footie pajamas, she doesn't have the mojo to bend time and reality like this-"

"And the only Trickster we know is a dead archangel-" Sam said. "So what do you think we're dealing with?"

"Maybe Metatron?" Dean suggested. "He is the Angel of Doushy."

"Yeah, but, stroking my hair while humming _Smoke on the Water_ like you did for that shifter baby? That's a pretty bizarre fetish, even for Metatron."

"You remember that?" Dean said in a clearing-his-throat-kind of voice.

"I was awake," Sam returned, actually clearing his throat like the weird feeling would diminish, which it didn't. "So yeah- Believe me, I don't want to either."

"So what we know about whatever's behind this is a whole lot of nothing, that's just, perfect-" Dean took his gun out of his jacket and cocked the hammer with a resonating click, heading towards the door of their motel room.

"Whoa," Sam started to follow him. "What are you doing? -"

"I'm going to take care of this-"

"With your _gun?"_ Sam returned.

"You're damn right with my gun," Dean threw back, waving the gun like a signal flag. "I'm tired of being yanked around like some puppet in a Bunch and Judy show."

"Dean-" Sam blocked Dean even more with his height, making his label as little brother a bit laughable in the physical sense right now. "First of all its _Punch_ and Judy-" Sam stopped talking when Dean glared at him in a way that said: _man_ and tried to push past him, but Sam blocked him with a hand on his chest. "And you're not about to just wander around a small town looking for things to shoot at!"

"Whatever we're calling this thing, it's _sick,_ Sam!" Dean cut in. "If you want to mess around with someone else's life, you need to get your stories straight, not Mad Lib it up!"

"So you want to combat something crazy, by waving your gun around and _acting_ crazy?" Sam said this like Dean was holding a piece of poop in his hand and pretending that it was his gun.

"Unless you need me to sit here and spoon feed you broccoli soup with mashed up Cool Ranch Sun Chips then, _yes_ , Sammy, that's exactly what I'm going to do!" he turned and set his hand on the door knob.

"No you're not," Sam grabbed Dean's wrist off the knob and twisted it around and pulled the gun from his hand all in the same movement.

" _Sam-"_

" _Dean, NO,"_ Sam slid the clip of the gun into his hand and cocked the chamber to pop out the bullet that was already engaged. He placed these items in the back pocket of his jeans and tossed the gun back to his brother.

Dean caught his gun with a steel melting look at Sam the eventually melted into a sigh because of the look Sam matched it with. "You can such be a little bitch sometimes."

"You're damn right I can," Sam returned.

"Glad we cleared that up," Dean ran a weary hand though his hair. "Alright, grab your stuff, whatever the hell is screwing with us isn't doing it at the State Road 15 Super 8."

"Right," Sam walked over to the bed, his boot bumping against something half hidden beneath the unmade comforter of his bed. He bent down and grasped some kind of handle, then a second one; pulling the heavy objects up off of the floor.

" _Dean-"_ In Sam's right hand was a laybrs- a double headed Greek Battle axe made of solid bronze with a handle length spanned his entire upper body; and in his left was a forged black iron Mace with razor sharp iron spikes "These aren't mine."

Dean gave a _what the hell?_ look at the full on battle axe Sam was holding up. "What the hell is this thing? -"

A knock came from the motel room door, jerking Dean's look away from Sam. The knock came again, louder, and the door knob began to wiggle.

Dean turned back around to Sam in silence, and Sam responded by tossing Dean back his loaded gun clip.

Sam set the axe and mace down as carefully as their weights would allow on the bed, throwing the unmade blue sheets over them both, before reaching into the weapons duffle for his own gun.

He clicked off the safety and moved closer to the door, his gun drawn. Dean walked right up to the door and pressed the muzzle of his Colt against the blue painted wood.

Dean slid out the bolt from the door's chain lock, twisted the knob, and opened the door with a fast movement.

Sunlight poured into the room followed by jangle of keys and a startled gasp of: _"Oh my god! -"_

A woman stood there in a pink diner waitress uniform, complete with white frilly apron, tennis shoes on her feet.

Dean lowered his gun from the door, but kept his finger on the trigger. From across the room Sam did the same.

Dean eyed the woman up and down. "Can I help you?"

"You forgot this," the woman spoke in a breathless voice still somewhat in shock of being so abruptly set upon. She held up a brown paper bag out to Dean, smoothing the flyaways of corn silk colored hair back up into her bun. "Goldfish crackers? For the soup? My shift ended five minutes ago, so I thought I'd just bring them over-"

Dean stared at her like she had five heads. "Lady, who are you?"

The woman's face fell for a moment like he was telling a joke that she didn't get. " _Suzanne_ \- I work at the diner across the street-" She pointed behind her to the white concrete building that sat across the one lane highway attached to a truck stop and a gas station. "You came in to buy some stuff for your baby brother, you said he was sick-" She broke off, glancing behind Dean and into the motel room. Her eyes met Sam standing there, and no one else. _"Oh-"_ her eyebrows knit into confusion that was laced with more than a bit of embarrassment. "From the way you talked about him, I thought your brother was a _child-"_

"Where'd you get this room key?" Sam pointed to the gold key in her hand attached to a green plastic key fob.

"My parents own the hotel," Suzanne said by way of explanation. "I asked them for it. I told them that this sweet guy came in, all concerned for his little brother who had a cold-" she broke off, her embarrassment colored her almost a fire engine red at the sight of Sam, well over six feet tall, standing in front of her. "I'm sorry, he really was speaking about you like you were five-years-old or something. I gave him soup and a free bag of chips, then he cried-one, perfect tear-"

Sam's eyebrows raised at the mention of Dean crying one perfect tear over free chips.

"It was so heartwarming-"

"Alright," Dean cut Susanne off with a wave of his hand."Before I came in did you notice anything different, or smell anything?"

"It's a diner," Susanne returned. "I smell a lot of things-food mostly."

"Anything that smelled like rotten eggs?"

Suzanne shook her head in answer to Dean's question. "No, we may be a small town diner but we're up to code." A bit of edge went into her voice.

"Did anything strange happen before he showed up?" Sam asked Suzanne, gesturing towards Dean.

"Like _X Files_ strange?" Suzanne said, her eyebrows narrowing again. "Sorry if you got the wrong idea here guys, but we're not one of those roadside attraction places- we're a _legit_ business. I did the same thing I do every day. I served breakfast, couple hours go by, then lunch happened, then _he_ showed up, right after Safi left."

" _Safi_?" Dean cut her off.

"A regular. Sweet kid," Suzanne spoke in the casual manner of small towns, where everyone knew everyone enough to not be on guard when talking about them. "Foster parents took her in after her mom dumped her at the motel about a year ago."

" _Safi_?" Dean repeated again. "That's not a common name you hear every day."

"That's because she's not from here originally," Suzanne's voice stalled like she had reached her small town talking about everything limit.

"She's not? -"

"I've already said too much," Suzanne said. "You guys aren't from here, you got no right asking about people."

"We're sorry, we're not trying to be nosy-" Sam held up his hands as if he was surrendering, his eyes flashing sincerity. "But the key in your hand kind of gave us a reason to be." the sincerity gave way to a slightly hardened edge.

Suzanne stared down at the key in her fingers like it had burned her. "I don't know much about her background-she was around eleven or twelve when she first came here last year. But you could tell she wasn't native to America, her hair is jet black and her English is accented. I can't tell what exactly, but it's like Middle Eastern or something. She started coming in to the diner when I my dad hired me on. She told me how the kids at her school make fun of the way she talks," Suzanne spoke in a way like she knew what that felt like. "I usually pay her bill with my tip money. She always carries this little notebook with her, it's painted gold or something. She had it when the police found her; I think it's a diary, because she's always writing in it." Suzanne paused. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this, but that's _all_ I'm telling you, she's just a kid." The silence came hard and awkward after she finished. She fingered the keys in her hand, and the bag of goldfish crackers like it was a bag of dog poop she was about to give them. "I'm sorry for barging in-" she said no more to that and just left, leaving the door wide open to the sounds of the parking lot.

Dean closed the door after Suzanne left, returning the motel room to the dim lighting of three table side lamps.

"So, I guess that officially rules out Crowley and the Gang," Dean clicked the safety on his gun and tossed it on the bed. "Demons don't have the best track record with possessing little girls," He turned one of the dinette chairs around and sat on it, rubbing at his eyes like the confusion of the last few minutes was something tangible he could wipe away. "Now we just have to spin the wheel of crazy to see what this thing is."

"I think I already know," Sam cut in.

Dean glanced up at Sam, in bewildered confusion. "Don't strain yourself Sammy."

"Shut up," Sam walked to the table, pushing aside the opened Styrofoam container half filled with broccoli soup that had congealed into a single cold lump. He brought up his laptop from the brown leather messenger bag that sat on the floor. The screen woke up in a few seconds from its sleep mode and Sam's hands clicked and moved over the keys. The sounds of his fingers stopped after about a minute and Dean's curiosity piqued at the look on Sam's face. "What is it?"

"Safkhat," Sam answered.

Dean looked at him. "Gesundheit."

Sam turned his laptop around so that the screen faced Dean with a painted image of a woman in Hieroglyph Profile in a long gown made of leopard skin. "The Egyptian Goddess of Writing."

Dean pulled back from his forward leaning position in the chair. "You gotta be kidding me-"

"According to this she is credited with _inventing writing_."

"So what you're saying is that she writes something and it comes to _life?"_

"More or less," Sam said. "It also says she was a scribe, and you remember how Cas told us that Metatron was able to manipulate reality by making it seem like Gabriel had come back to life? Safkhat must possess the same kind of mojo-"

"So she's like Metatron, but with teenage angst, great." Dean's hand was back to running over his eyes. "Why is she so interested in fangirling out our lives? Shouldn't she be out smiting people and making blood sacrifices like other ancient gods?"

"Why don't we ask her?" Sam returned. "She gets free food at the diner. Let's see if that includes dinner."

"And what keeps her from having me braid your hair and putting you in footie pajamas? Or you crying about coughing?" Dean asked. "Obviously the antipossesion tattoos haven't stopped her from dicking around."

"How about if _either_ one of us catches the other acting out of character, we just- punch each other in the face?" Sam said the last part like it was an easily accessed remedy for ancient Egyptian goddesses who screw with people's heads.

"Oh yeah, that's a great plan," Dean threw back.

"You got a better one?" Sam returned.

"Yeah," Dean flipped the sheets off of Sam's bed, picking up the iron mace, examining it like he was checking the balance in an arrow, then reached for the axe, which he nearly dropped from the weight. "See if one of these shoved into her face kills her."

Sam gave a brief laugh of disbelief. "Dean, neither of those are Egyptian weapons, and I doubt she's stupid enough to write something in that she _knows_ can kill her."

Dean dropped both weapons down on the bed with a thump that cut a hole into the mattress. "So you just want to _find her,_ and then what? Bounce her royalty checks? She's a _goddess_ Sam, I doubt she'll just drop her stylus because we asked her too."

"We bind her," Sam stood up and walked over to where his duffle bag lay open on the bed. He reached into and the bag, feeling past all the soft layers of shirts and rough, faded denim until he pulled a thick heavy mass of iron chain and heavy manacles etched in spell work. "Add some Egyptian hieroglyph spell work into these and hold her until she stops."

"And what if she doesn't?" Dean threw out.

Sam looked at him with a right cock of his head. "You know what."

Dean cocked his head at Sam in the opposite direction. "Sam, we don't even know how to gank her."

"The diner doesn't start serving dinner until five," Sam returned in a voice that said he had had enough of being screwed with. "We'll figure it out."

Dean's head leveled back into a straight angle on his neck, a smile creeping towards pride on his face. "Alright then."


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Two**

 _ **Dean was beside himself with fright! Poor Sammy's cold had him coughing with MUCH more than a medium amount of force this time! He laid curled in his bed in broken legs, unable to do anything but cry.**_

Sam lifted the point of the awl away from the cuffs, blowing away powdery iron filings away. The images were small and somewhat crude. There had barely been enough room to squeeze anything in above what was already carved there, but the spell was all there, carved in a perfect wring around both of the cuffs.

" _ **Don't worry Sammy!" Dean said as he stood over his baby brother's bedside. "I'll keep you safe."**_

Dean picked Sam's gun off of the table and handed it to him.

Sam stowed the gun behind his pants. He reached across the table and picked up a four-inch bladed knife with the same spell work burnt into the blade from a heated lock pick. He held it out to Dean, handle first.

Dean took the blade from Sam with a slapping sound of the handle hitting his palm.

 _ **Dean raced out of the motel room, the door banging and clanging behind him, into the cold, cruel night, alone, terrified! An old woman getting ice at the machine looked up at the noise, asking him what was wrong. But he didn't hear her because worry drown out all sound like buzzing bees.**_

Dean closed the motel room door without a sound, moving quietly away from it. One lone woman stood at the ice machine, an older lady with a smile that she flashed at him widely.

"Evening."

"Evening," Dean returned quickly.

"Beautiful starry night," the woman said looking up at the sky that was clearly still bright enough with light to show no visible stars.

"Yes ma'am," Sam returned, keeping the small talk going to avoid suspicion even though he couldn't see any stars.

"You boys have a good night," the lady returned, picking up her ice bucket that rattled its loose contents around.

"Will do," Dean returned, waiting until the woman lost interest in them before heading across the street.

 _ **Dean's feet pounded across the pavement, past cars that screamed and honked at him until he reached the diner and burst through the door.**_

The traffic on the road was a trickle as they reached the white diner with its neon sign. The door opened with a chime of bells that Dean vaguely remembered from earlier. The place was half full of people, filled with a quiet din of forks and knives clattering onto plates. The air smelled like hamburgers and milkshakes, and Salisbury steak.

" _ **What's the matter sweetie?" A waitress instantly hurried over to Dean, seeing the stricken look on his face.**_

"Seat yourself boys," a waitress called out from the counter pouring coffee into the cup of a man who sat at the long countertop seating.

Most of the patrons were seated at the clusters of booths in the center of the diner. A woman with a small toddler in her lap sat at the countertop across from the man who had just gotten coffee. Sitting in the center of the counter was a teenage girl in a white t-shirt and jeans. A cheetah skin print headband held back the long black hair from her face.

Dean and Sam walked slowly over to countertop. Sam took a seat one seat down from the girl.

 _ **Dean told the woman in great gulps of air what was wrong with his brother, and her eyes shone with a sympathetic sadness. "Oh honey!"**_

"What can I get for you honey?" The woman who had called out to them earlier, slapped a plastic covered menu down in front of Dean, then Sam, her eyes on Dean because he was standing.

"Two coffees and a Monti Cristo to go," Dean pulled out his wallet, setting down a twenty-dollar bill on the counter, choosing food that would take the longest to make.

"Sandwich will take about twenty minutes," the woman told Dean. "You and your- _gentleman_ friend might wanna have that coffee here."

A snorted laugh came from the girl at the bar. Dean turned his attention towards her, noting how she was writing furiously in a gold notebook with a cooper colored ballpoint pen.

"No, ah-" Sam said to the waitress from his seat. "We're brothers."

"That doesn't change what I said about the coffee." The waitress returned simply, non-plussed about being corrected.

"Sure then, okay." Sam said.

The waitress reached under the counter and set a white ceramic coffee cup in front of Sam, pouring black coffee from a pot on the warmer behind her, Sam flashed the woman a smile, which she didn't return before turning the coffee pot's attention to Dean's cup.

 _ **The waitress moved as quickly as she could to fill Dean's order, giving him a cup of warm cocoa with marshmallows on top to warm him up from his long run over to the diner in the cold night.**_

Dean threw the waitress a smile and a "thanks". She placed the pot back on the corner without acknowledging him and walked into the kitchen with a swish of the metal door.

 _ **The diner was almost empty, the townspeople already safe in their warm beds, but there was a sweet looking little girl, sitting at the center of the counter top, eating a hamburger next to her mother who was talking on the phone. Dean watched them both; the girl reminded him so much of Sammy that he almost cried again. All he could imagine was pneumonia stricken Sam crying for him from the thin, scratchy motel sheets.**_

Dean wrapped his coffee cup up in one hand, taking a long hit from it. He glanced over the girl's head to Sam, who sat grasping his own coffee cup, returning the look. Dean slipped the knife out of his jacket and up his coat sleeve with a movement so fast it only took seconds. He finally took the empty seat one across from the girl.

 _ **The little girl could sense something was wrong and looked up to see the sad, lonely eyes of Dean staring at her, tears wining their battle and sliding down his face-**_

"Homework?"

The girl raised her head from her notebook. Her eyes were an ebony brown and lined in thick dark kohl eyeliner that curved up at the end. The shirt she was wearing was a silk screen with the words:

 _I can't hear you. I'm writing fanfiction.'_

"No." She said briskly, going back to her writing.

"Nice shirt," Sam said on her right.

The girl set down her pen and turned to face Sam with a glare at being interrupted a second time.

"You mug someone at Comic Con?" Sam met her glare with his glare. " _Safi_ isn't it? Interesting name."

The girl's glare vanished. "How did you know my name?"

"You told us," Dean returned, "Just now."

"Safi?" A man in his mid-fifties came out of the kitchen in a grease stained gray shirt, dishrag over his shoulder. "What's going on here? Are these guys bothering you?" he glanced at Sam and Dean with hostility.

"It's okay Tom," Safi turned her eyes away from Sam to Tom, a mask of sweet innocence falling over them. "They're friends of my foster mom's, we have inside jokes."

Tom looked unsure about this explanation, looking back at all of them. "She's a kid, fellas, keep it clean."

"Sure thing," Dean said.

Tom took longer than the waitress to walk back into the kitchen, his eyes narrowed, his expression guarded. "I'll be right back here kiddo if you need anything." He gave one final warning glare to Dean and walked back into the kitchen, eyes on him until he disappeared through the swinging metal door.

As soon as the door swung one way, the waitress reemerged back through it with a Styrofoam to-go box wrapped up in a plastic bag with a big smiley face on it. It wasn't a chance maneuver either. Dean knew it, and so did the waitress.

"Wow," Dean eyed the box as it was set down on the counter. "It's been twenty minutes already?"

"Tom works fast," the waitress tossed a couple of wrapped lemon drops onto the counter. "You boys should be all set." She eyed Dean with a noticeable glare now that he ran out of reasons to stay.

"You don't mind if I take a peek at Tom's handiwork do you? -" Dean started to undo the knot in the plastic bag. "I admire a guy who can deep fry-"

The waitress set her hand on Dean's, stilling it. "High school basketball team coming in a few minutes for an after season party, I'll be needing to set up-" Her expectant look turned sharper, more feral, daring Dean to not listen to her.

"Excuse me," Sam's voice took on a raspy tone, " _Viola?-"_ He read the name off of metal name tag clipped to the front of the waitress' uniform. "Where-?" he coughed, then twice more, louder and then a fourth time, wet sounding, spitting something into his palm.

Dean's expression narrowed, he turned to his brother, eyes widening at a not so distant memory of Sam coughing up blood "Sam?-"

"You okay honey?" Viola's tone lost its edge and was replaced with real concern.

"Yeah-just-" Sam coughed again, thickly into his palm, half doubled over."-bathroom?"

"Right in back," Viola pointed to the back of the diner to an opened doorway that sat underneath a clock framed in glowing pink neon bulbs.

"Thank you," Sam stood up from the stool with a squeak of its legs, raising narrowed eyes up around the room, squinting like the light was too bright. He settled a look on Dean for a there and gone moment before he hurried over the tiled floor, hacking painful sounding coughs the entire way.

Viola turned back to Dean. "He alright?"

Dean watched Sam's retreating figure. "He woke up like this – I thought it was just a cold, but now it sounds like pneumonia. The hotel we're staying at has thin, scratchy sheets on the beds-" Dean shot a sideling glance at the girl.

"Son, you can't catch pneumonia from thin sheets," Viola said like he was simple. "It's airborne, it can come on when it's sweating sunshine outside-"

"I need to use the restroom Ms. Viola," The girl suddenly cut in. "Will you watch my stuff for me?"

"Sure sweetie, go ahead," Viola said with a warm smile.

Safi returned the smile, but as she walked away from the counter, her eyes shifted in a way that only Dean saw.

"Your best bet would be to take your brother to a doctor instead of making wild speculations," Viola said to Dean, "We have a hospital about ten miles from here."

"If I can drag him there I'll give it a go," Dean returned.

"That's what ear grabbing is for son," Viola returned. "My kids are all up and grown but I can still yank them where they need to go when I have too."

Dean offered her a bit of a smile before glancing to the back of the diner where Sam had yet to come out. "He's been back there too long-" he stood up from his stool "Scuse me." He walked down towards the opened doorway.

 **xxxXxx**

Safi pushed opened the door to the ladies' room, walking over to the sink; she turned on the water, letting the tap run for a moment to heat up. A large mirror hung over the sink and she stared at her reflection, making a noise of displeasure at her appearance. She lowered her eyes from her reflection and stuck her hands in the now warm water, scrubbing at the stylus ink stains that had smudged on her skin with a furious movement, cursing in a dead language.

Something cold and metal snapped on her arm. She reared back in alarmed confusion, but had no time to move again before a second metal manacle enclosed her other wrist. She looked back up into the mirror seeing Sam's refection watching her back right behind her. " _What are you doing?"_ She jerked around facing Sam head on. She pulled against him like a frightened animal in a cage "let me go! -"

"Save it," Sam locked the manacles with a tiny iron key. "We know what you are."

At the term 'we' the girl looked back up to the mirror in time to see the bathroom door open with a swing. She turned her head again, watching Dean step through the door for real, locking it behind him.

She turned a slow turn back towards Sam, looking up full into his face. "I thought you were supposed to be _sick."_

Sam held up an empty candy wrapper. "Lemon drop." He had slipped in his mouth unbeknownst to anyone out in the diner. The acidic taste had been perfect to produce enough extra saliva to make his production believable.

She glared at him, her expression losing all pretense of a scared teenage girl under it. "You little piece of shi-!"

"That's a pretty bad language for a teenager to use, right Sammy?" Dean threw back.

She whirled on Dean. "Oh honey," her dark eyes glowed with a slow melting anger. "You don't know the half of the bad language I can use. I've been a Goddess longer that your culture has been alive, my power is _ancient_ , limitless-"

"Not in those cuffs it's not." Sam said. "There's enough spell work etched in them to keep you down for a long time."

"I'm a _Scribe,_ Sammy-" Safkhet said with a flick of her head to him like he was an ignorant child. She held up her cuffed hands with a rattle of the chain that bound them together. "I _created_ this writing, I created _all_ writing! What makes you think I can't just erase your little Pictionary game and leave?-"

"Because you would've done it already," Dean said. "But my guess is you need these-" he held out her golden notebook and copper stylus. "Otherwise you're just a teenager on lockdown."

"Cute," Safkhet stared at Dean with razor sharp anger in her eyes. "I see where baby brother Sammy gets his mouth from. Maybe I'll write about it being eaten off by something, go a little darker, old school-" she stared down at her shirt like she had just noticed what it said. "These guys don't _get_ it do they? -" She looked back up and over to Sam with a slow swinging gaze. "Hell. _Lucifer_. The _Cage-"_

 **[** _Cold air swept over his bare skin, blue ice crystalized over the hairs on his chest, the barbs of the spears lodged in his abdomen froze over as the ice reached the open wounds._ **]**

"Those hurt a lot more than colds and stomach viruses, right Sam?"

Sam felt his knees pull out from under him like they had been sawed off at the knee caps, dropping him in a tumble against the side of the bathroom stall.

"Sam!" Dean's call of his name jerked in an out of focus like a stop motion film.

 **["** _You're okay Sam-" Somewhere in the darkness Lucifer's voice echoed like a reverb on a mixing board. Spindled fingers traced Sam's bare chest "This will only hurt for a week buddy-"_

 _Something sharp penetrated straight through his hip bone and out the other side. Sam screamed._ _ **]**_

"Sam, hey!" Dean pulled him upward by the shoulders as his brother began to scream, horrendously. _"Hey! Talk to me!"_

 **[** " _Talk to me Sam. I hate it when you disengage-" Lucifer's voice was a whisper, echoing off of the blank space of blackness. Talon tipped fingers wriggled the barbed thing deeper into Sam's flesh like he was sewing with a needle "It's all going to be fine. This is all just a little- work out-" The metal thing was ripped out the other side and Sam's scream deafened him. "You're_ fine!" **]**

"You're fine," Sam repeated the words, like he had done before in the hospital, their syllables banged against his skull. He braced his head against the wall, slapping one palm up above it, eyes squeezed shut like he was trying to keep his brain from escaping out of their sockets. _"You're fine,you'refineyou're fine-"_

"SAM!" Dean whirled on Safkhet, keeping his hands braced on Sam's shoulders. _"What the hell are you doing to him?"_

" _I'm_ not doing _anything_! You have my stylus remember?" The Goddess watched what was happening like it was an action movie she was waiting to see the end of. "He's doing it to himself."

The pounding and the noise in Sam's head suddenly ceased. He jerked backwards with a gasp of air like he'd been yanked drowning from a river, clawing himself up onto his feet with the flat of his hands braced against the stall.

"Sam, heyheyhey-" Dean reached for one of his brother's flailing arms, but Sam avoided them all together and stood back up at a slant, panting on breaths that shook his entire body, skin watered down in sweat.

Safkhet watched Sam with a bit of a smirk _"That's_ how you write angst, I'm defiantly taking a page out of your book kid- I mean-" her smile extended into a laugh that bled into her next words _"-look at your face!-"_

Sam shot forward on staggered legs and yanked the chain of the cuffs, pinning the Goddess against the opposite wall next to an electric hand dryer, gun muzzle shoved into her chest.

The goddess eyed the gun like it was a toy. "Take your best shot, it's not gonna work."

Sam cocked a bullet into the chamber. "Doesn't mean I can't try-"

"Sam, _Sam!"_ Dean grabbed Sam's shoulders and yanked him backwards against the sink countertop. "No-!"

"Oh come on!" the Goddess looked at Dean like has stolen the cherry off of her sundae. "This isn't _fanfiction_ , Dean! This is real life –don't make your brother a tease."

Dean pulled out the knife blade burned with hieroglyphic carvings, posing its tip against the Goddess throat. "This is how this goes: you talk to him again, you even _look,_ in his direction the next thing you're gonna write about is this blade going in you and your brains spilling out from your throat."

Safkhet blinked her kohl black eyes at Dean, "Fine," she glanced sideways at Sam who watched her back with heavy breath. "You have my word, I won't touch him." she blinked again, the tiniest bit of something shifting in her eyes. "Not that I wouldn't want too-" her voice practically hummed as she watched Sam with the rapt attention of a falcon to something moving on the ground. "Two thousand year wait to breed something like you- I would _love_ to see if it was worth it." Her body was a teenager, but her voice was thick like century's old honey coating a bee hive. "That body practically screams ' _fuck me'_ -"

"Shut your mouth!" Sam's voice was a rumbled threat, glancing at Dean, who took the silent signal and pushed the knife tip further against the Goddess throat.

Safkhet looked at Sam like a scarab beetle caught under a glass that had tried to curse at her. "The things that come out of your mouth-" she smiled like the knife at her throat was harmless. "All those stories I scoured over about you. They always depict you as this weak, _pathetic,_ sad little boy stuttering in his own snot over a paper cut. People seem to have a fetish for hurt Sam-"

"Yeah, well those people aren't here-," Dean said with the low rumble of a storm that gains momentum as dropped down from the sky. "We are. And we're gonna make you wish you weren't."

Safkhet laughed as dry as the desert sands she once looked down on in the Old Kingdom. "Did you ever wonder how come there isn't that much hurt Dean? What's that about?" her eyes swept over both of them like she expected an answer, then moved back up to Dean. ""Those so called _writers –_ they don't know shit-but they at least get one thing right," kohl lined looked directly at Sam. "How far you'll go for him."

A sudden, sharp pain pulled itself across Sam's arm, jerking his gun out of his hand. He looked down and saw the arm of jacket dripping red with blood from a slash across it. He barely had time to process how it happened before something sliced across his other arm, spilling more blood to the floor, then again through his jeans down into the flesh of his knee. He fell in a grunt to the tiles.

"Sam!"

"Before you ask-" the knife pulled away from her throat as Dean fell into a crouch beside Sam.

Another long gash opened in an upward vertical motion along Sam's leg with a tearing sound, like a knife was cutting up into his flesh from the inside out.

"It's _me_ , doing it to him this time-but I'm keeping my word-" she held up her shackled hands. "I haven't touched him."

Sam screamed with a force that whiplashed his head back against the porcelain edge of the sink. Blood drew out in a dark red line on his leg in such large amounts that it soaked through his jeans in a matter of moments.

Dean tried to place his hands over the wounds, but he couldn't see it past all the blood.

"The little kittens and rainbow tweenager prologue bit was just a lure to the real meat of my story-"

Dean turned around in barely half a second, knife back against Safkhet's throat, hands sticky with his brother's blood. "Call it off!"

"It's already been _written_ , Dean," the goddess flicked her eyes over to where her notebook lay flung against the bathroom stall. "Every beautiful word of it. You want it to end, fine. Just find this passage and burn it. It's just too bad you can't read Egyptian hieroglyphs and don't have a fire hot enough to melt gold before Sammy there bleeds out all over the bathroom floor." She laughed again, much more cynical.

Dean's anger boiled into rage. He pulled the knife forward, drawing blood out from the Goddess' throat, a dark red flicked with golden dust.

She gasped, but a moment later stared at him with a rage that shattered the youth of the form she wore. The iron manacles on her wrist glowed, the inscriptions disappeared; the iron dropping from her wrists with a clang. Her form flickered and grew into a woman with coal black in a leopard print dress holding a wooden staff half a head taller than her. She raised her hand and sent the knife sprawling in a spin in one direction and Dean against the wall, his head cracking against white tile.

" _Safi!"_ A pounding came on the other side of the door along with the voice of the waitress. " _What's going on? Why is the door locked?"_

" _Five more minutes Tom!"_ Safkhet stared down at Dean who still lay in a daze on the ground, then to Sam soaked in a pool of his own blood. "I wrote this part in too." Her voice was deeper; she dropped the staff with a heavy clang of ash wood and reached into the wrapped folds of her dress, pulling out a flat bladed dagger made of gold. She walked on sandaled feet over to Dean, yanking his head up by the hair, placing the blade at his throat. "Makes you miss the earlier stuff doesn't it?" She pushed the blade up higher against Dean's throat, spilling a thin line of blood out of his flesh.

The gold notebook laid under the gap in the stall, flung there when it had escaped Dean's hand, the copper colored stylus, inches from it near the basin of the toilet. Sam's vision swam in and out of focus, his ears pounded with a thundering gallop of a noise as he honed in on these two objects. A hand span away, Safkhet's staff laid in a diagonal against the tile. He stretched his arm across the tile, until his blood slicked hands reached out and closed around it.

"Sammy's going to be dead soon, Dean." She stared at Dean unblinking, cold, calculated, moving the knife in a sliding motion against Dean's neck until she drew a grunt.

Sam moved the staff up until it was under the stall, pulling the hook over the stylus, moving it until the stylus slid into the notebook. He kept pulling, feeling the blood leave his body faster from moving, barely there threads of consciousness floating through him.

"And from what I hear from those close to your Creed, it's going to _stick_ this time. So I'm going to sit here, with you, and savor every. moment you have to watch the light fades from your brother's eyes."

Something replaced the rage in Dean's eyes, something unnamed, but much fiercer than rage, primal.

" _Safi!"_ Tom's voice replaced Viola's, and there came the sound of someone pushing their shoulder into the door. _"Unlock the door!"_ Her eyes widened and she whipped her head around with a flurry of dark hair.

The bathroom door flew open a moment later, bouncing hard once against the wall behind it. Tom stepped through the door, a red fire extinguisher in his hand, one or two steps behind him was Viola, her voice rose in a scream at the sight of the blood puddled on the floor.

"Who are you?" Tom held the fire extinguisher out like it was a loaded gun at Safkhet. "Where's Safi?!"

The Goddess turned her head towards the door and an invisible force lifted Tom off the floor and pitched him into the wall with a bone cracking force. He slid down the tile with a daze. "I _said_ five more minutes, Tom!"

" _Safi? "_ Viola's eyes widened in shock, staring at the sight of the woman who looked nothing like the girl she had seen walk in.

Safi flicked her eyes up to Viola like she was an annoying flying insect that was buzzing in front of her, and Viola's face contorted from shock to fear. "What is with you small town folk?" her eyes roamed back down to Dean pinned underneath her like they had been deep into a meaningful conversation that had been rudely interrupted. "Nosy, self-centered little things. You think _everything_ is their business," she snorted. "I'm the only one with that divine right-"

Viola screamed a moment later as she was flung down to the floor on her knees like she was being nailed down one limb at a time.

"This story was a final copy," Safkhet mimicked Viola's southern drawl, as her golden notebook slid slowly across the floor to her. She jerked Dean's head forward, then slammed it back down on the tile with a crack that resonated, stepping over him like he was trash. "Now I have to do a rewrite for continuity sake."

Dean's head exploded into stars, tunneling into blackness that threatened to pull him down. He turned and saw Sam leaning in a slant against the wall, knees bent, blood dripping off his jeans, sliding down towards the drain in the center of the bathroom floor. Sam's eyes were glassy, but looking towards him.

The Goddess picked up her notebook and stepped through the stain of blood leaking out of Sam, tracking a red footprint over to where Viola lay pinned to the ground.

"Let her go!-" Dean's voice shook like loose bricks, his body almost squeezed free of all breath.

"Shut up!" Safkhet screamed.

The air up Dean's throat became furnace hot, he felt his voice close off.

Safkhet knelt down next to Viola and flipped open the notebook pages to a section of pictograph hieroglyphs done in a neat line. She stared at the frightened waitress with dark eyes. "There's _power_ in writing, especially if you're me," she drew her face closer to the terrified woman, stroking a hand across her face, And after I finish writing this story- it's permanent."

She picked up her stylus that lay on the ground by her feet; but froze over the opened page of her notebook. In the margins of her notebook there was a scribbled sloppy line:

 _dýnami machaíri ametávliti_

She turned her head and found nothing but a large puddle of blood, with thick draglines leading away from it. She whipped around to Dean still lying on the ground. "What did you do?"

Dean' s voice was still swallowed by the heat, but looked the Goddess dead in the eye and mouthed: "Not it."

A squelching tearing sound jerked the Goddess's body forward. She turned around and found Sam holding the knife with the carvings, blood dripping from the blade mixing with the mass of red staining his jeans.

Whatever the knife had hit released the Goddess's power on both Dean and Viola like a too tight seatbelt. Viola fell to the ground in a scream, her terrified cries echoing off the tile. The hot grip around Dean's throat was released; he gasped and got to his feet and; yanking Viola back from the Goddess.

Safkhet reached a hand around behind her, her palm stained in red blood flecked with gold. "Stabbing someone in the back?" She eyed Sam like she expected more. "Cowardly move for a Hunter. Maybe you really _are_ weak and pathetic-"

Safkhet's words ended on a choking sound as Sam pierced the blade straight through her chest and into her heart.

Viola screamed, trying to hide herself against Dean.

"Or maybe not." The Goddess laughed a laugh that spilled gold flecked blood down her lips. "Enjoy the Empty boy." Her body lit up like a flame hit with an accelerant, then she exploded.

The room was showered in a million gold colored flecks like sparks from a powerline, enveloping the room in a hot, white light.

Viola cowered against Dean; he threw his arm over her head.

The heat went from hot to scorching, Dean shielded his eyes in the crook of his elbow, watching as the brightness envelop his brother. "Sam!"

The heat and light swallowed the whole room, and then it was gone.

Dean raised his head up; Sam was still standing, next to a massive burnt scorch mark on the tile floor, the knife still held in his hand.

"Sammy-?-" Dean moved around Viola, with a hand on her shoulder, watching his brother.

Sam stared back at Dean for a moment with wide eyes before he collapsed backwards like a rotting infrastructure to the tile, landing half propped against the wall.

"Sam!" Dean dropped on his knees beside his brother. "Hey!" The gash on Sam's leg was still massive and still continued to pump blood out of it even with all that was already staining his pants. More leaked in drips down his elbows onto the tile from the slashes on his arms.

" _Hey!"_ Dean threw off his jacket and denim shirt, winding the second around Sam's leg twice, pressing his other hand into one of the gashes on Sam's arm.

Across the tiled floor, Viola crawled back up on her knees.

"V!" Tom clamored over to Viola and lifted her up off the ground just as Sam screamed from the knot that Dean forced into the makeshift tourniquet around his leg.

A dark redness began to seep into the cloth knot, going first from red, to almost dark black. The blood soaked its way up past the knot, dripping out from the fabric of Dean's shirt; the color of Sam's face dripping out along with it. "Dean-" his voice was a wisp of noise, clinging to life.

"Sammy, hey!" Dean gripped his brother's face in his hands, slapping it. "Stay here with me man, you hear me?!"

" _Oh god,"_ Viola said the utterance with a hand up over her mouth as she and Tom took in the full scene that lay on the bathroom floor in a pool of thick blood. Neither one of them approached Sam and Dean, a haze of shock seeming to settle over them both like a cloud.

" _Dean,"_ the thinnest reed of breath escaped Sam's lips, choked off in a dying struggle in the end. His arms had all but stopped bleeding, but it was only because all of the blood was escaping from the massive gash in his leg. "- _the book-"_

Dean glanced to where the book lay on outer fringes of the scorch mark on the tile; its pages splayed open upside down. There came a great shuddering noise behind him, and when he turned back around Sam's entire body was sliding down the wall, the strength to hold him up against it, gone.

"Sam!-" Dean grabbed fistfuls of Sam's jacket, but Sam had stopped moving and his dead weight pulled against Dean's hands, pulling Dean down to the floor with him. "-hey no, HEY! _"_ Dean jerked his hand in the collar of Sam's jacket. _"Sammy!"_ he slapped Sam's face, pressing his whole hand against Sam's neck, feeling the fluttering struggle of his heart to beat with so much blood missing from his body. He turned back around to the book, out of his grasp unless he moved.

Dean jerked his head up to Tom and Viola who both were slowly approaching them, Tom taking more of a lead, his face still in shock. "Keep him alive!"

Viola's face contorted on the words that Dean said to Tom. _"What?-"_

Dean yanked Viola down by her arm and pushed on her hand on top of the blood soaked cloth wrapped around Sam's leg. He reached with a crouch and snatched the golden notebook from off the floor, turning back to Viola, his expression deadly and inches from her face. "You _don't_ let him die, _understand!_ " He took one last look at Sam, climbed up from the tile and was out of the bathroom in seconds with a thudded run of his boots on the tile.

The diner still held only a small group of people, the little girl at the booth screamed at the sight of Dean running past her with bloodstained clothes, there was a scrape of a chair as the girl's mother stood up to snatch her daughter away from him. The man with the coffee dropped his cup with a shatter to the ground and screamed for someone to call the police.

The cold night air hit Dean with the smell of dirt and cigarettes. The blasting horn of a truck blared at him as he escaped its front end by inches as he ran at a dead sprint across the single lane road.

 **xxxxxXxxxxx**

"-is he breathing?" Tom pulled his cellphone down from his ear, repeating the words the 911 dispatcher was telling him.

Viola quickly lifted one of her hands off of applying pressure to stem the blood pouring out of Sam's leg, placing it under his nose. Only a delicate tickle of air blew against her fingers, and his lips were tinged in gray. "Feels like barely!"

"Barely," Tom repeated Viola's words. "I- I don't _know_ what happened!" Tom screamed into the phone at the dispatcher. "Found him in the bathroom," the scorch mark lay inches from where he and Viola were crouched over Sam, the golden staff lay splintered next to it. "Someone slashed him up pretty bad, just _get down here!"_

Viola pushed her hands back down over Sam's leg, the movement causing him to jerk very weakly, but he didn't open his eyes. "C'mon baby-" Viola ordered to the man she had nearly kicked out of her diner moments earlier. "You stay with us ya here!"

 **xxxxXxxx**

Dean ran through the parking lot, the color of cars blurring past him, stopping dead flat against the Impala. He threw open the trunk with a jangle of keys, shoving aside the duffle bag, yanking open the trunk's false bottom, moving around blades and guns until he found the amphora. He snatched it out and slammed the trunk closed, running a foot or two past all the cars to an empty stretch of pavement that severed as the entrance to the motel.

He threw the golden notebook on the ground, pulling the cork off the amphora, spilling out the Holy Oil inside the jar onto the book's cover. The liquid slid and puddled around the book and onto the ground.

 **xxxxXxxx**

"Tom, he stopped breathing!" Viola cried out as she felt stopped feeling any air on her hand.

Tom threw down the cellphone in his hand and it landed by one of his knees where he was crouched, the tinny voice of the 911 dispatcher echoing cries of " _Sir_ , _are you still there? Sir!"_ against the fabric of his jeans.

Tom jerked a hand up against Sam's chest. "He still has a heartbeat!" He grabbed Sam up by the neck, pinching his nose closed and breathing twice into his mouth in succession. Sam's chest rose and fell, but only with the forced pressure exerted from each of Tom's breaths. " _Come on son!-"_

 **xxxxXxxx**

Dean broke off a match from the book in his jacket pocket, striking it against the asphalt, a flame igniting at the end with a sizzle. The golden book opened suddenly with a hot force of wind that rustled the pages extinguishing the match out of his hand. Dean grabbed his Zippo lighter from his jacket; igniting an orange flame. But, the wind picked up force, blasting him off his feet, throwing him up against the back passenger door of the Impala. His head smashed hard against the steel and the lighter and match book were flung with an over and over rattle sound underneath the body of the Impala.

He heard a snakelike hiss rattling in a language he didn't understand coming from the pages of the book, and he felt a force radiating out of it.

 **xxxxXxxx**

"He's bradycardic!" The paramedic read the monitor of the AED, seeing Sam's heartrate beat at a rhythm of only 25 times a minute. The machine beeped again as the automatic sensors started to analyze the data collected, but before it could advise on what to do, the Paramedic called out to his partner, who was squeezing air into Sam's lungs via a blue ambue oxygen bag. "I'm shocking him!-clear-"

The medic's partner removed his hand off of Sam as his partner pressed the blue defribulation button on the AED. Sam's body jumped from the electrical current.

Viola stood against the bathroom wall by Tom, her bloodied hands over her mouth, face half buried in Tom's shoulder.

Both medics waited while the rhythm was analyzed. "Still bradycardic," the medic's partner shouted. "Shock again!"

Both men removed their hands as a second defribulation arched Sam up off the tile floor stained thickly in blood. His shirt lay half open, the wide AED pads stuck to his chest. Dean's tourniquet was soaked clean through, and so were the compression bandages the medics had wrapped over Sam's jeans and both arms.

"Heartrate's up to 45!" the second paramedic said. "Resuming CPR!" He closed off the ambue mask with his fingers, squeezing air into Sam's lungs. "Come on buddy, come on!"

 **xxxxXxxx**

Dean's vision was blurred and doubled, the warmth wetness of blood dripped into his eyes. The hissing voice coming from the golden book changed into a twisted laughter.

His hand found the metal of his gun inside his jacket. He drew it out in one fast motion, aiming it at the thin sliver of the book's exposed golden cover. The bullet winged off the metal, producing a tiny spark that ignited the Holy Oil. The laughter from the pages turned into a warped scream as the orange flames swallowed the book.

 **xxxxXxxx**

"No breath sounds!" The paramedic with the ambue bag moved to lower the mask back over Sam's mouth and nose. "starting CPR aga-"

Sam's eyes tore open with a sucking gasp of air causing both medic's to jump back, and Viola to gasp in shock.

"Son-of-a-!" the first medic looked to his partner in stunned shock before his attention focused back on Sam, who lay pale and gray, but blinking up in the light. "Hey buddy-You with us?-" as he spoke he removed the ambue bag over Sam's face and replaced it with an oxygen mask.

Sam felt his entire body encased in a congealed coldness, the thick copper smell of blood cloying around him. His breath rattled in a cough. "D'n!-" His brother's name was lost under the plastic mask, as he turned his head to the door, trying to sit up to see above the people crouched around him.

"Hey take it easy!" the first medic tried to pin Sam down by his shoulders, but it was a struggle because Sam fought him with strength that the paramedic felt was impossible for him to have.

Sam bucked harder, landing the medics flat on the floor against his medical bag, sending a spray of closed IV needles around him. He pulled the mask off his face, reached down and yanked the IV catheter out from his elbow, blood leaking out of his arm.

"Hey! _Hey!_ " The medic's partner reached up with his gloved hand and pinned Sam's head down by his forehead "Keep still man, we're trying to help you!-"

" _Sam!-"_

Movement came from behind the paramedics, Dean emerged between them, the left side of his face dripping in blood. He took in the sight of all the blood soaked bandages, and the pads on his chest, but of Sam's fully aware gaze staring up at him.

" _Dean!"_ Sam fought to get out of the medic's grasp, the shock and adrenaline coursing through him almost wining again, until Dean threw his own weight on top of Sam, pinning him down with a bent arm across his chest.

"Whoa, hey! Sam stop!-"

"Get out the restraints! -"

"No you're fucking not!" Dean cut off the paramedic's words like a quick shot from a gun. "Sam- hey!-" He watched the complete confusion cloud over the color of Sam's eyes as to _why_ Dean was doing this. "Listen to me! You're slashed up pretty bad." The look that came from Dean told Sam that he needed to go with the situation because there was no other way but to play along. "You need to stay down- I'm right here man," his breath and Sam's breath competed for noise level in the open air. "Alright?"

Sam gave the briefest of nods and stopped trying to fight. Dean pulled back on his weight, removing his arm off his chest. Sam fell back with a weakness that was more feigned than he actually felt. But, the pure disorientation from waking up in his own blood added to the realism of his acting and was fully bought by everyone in the room except Dean.

"Get out the backboard!" The first Paramedic said to his partner. "Call the ER, tell them we're bringing in a critical!-"

Sam continued to stare up at Dean as the oxygen mask was placed back over his face, his eyes asking only a single question: _"Is it over?"_


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Three**

"What is this?" Dean stared into the plastic cup filled with blue and red Jello cubes topped off with what looked like torched meringue.

"It's Jello," Sam stated. Flipping past the Weather Channel on the TV mounted to the hospital room wall.

"Jello with _meringue?"_ Dean returned making a face. "Dude that's just gross; even I wouldn't eat that," he tossed the plastic cup back on the tray over Sam's hospital bed. He eyed his brother who was still flipping channels, noting the bandages covering both of his arms, and the one on his leg wrapped from his ankle up to his knee. "How you doing?"

"I'm _great,_ considering I don't actually _need_ any of this," Sam returned, flipping past a Bugs Bunny cartoon, then an infomercial for a Waffle Iron and Hotdog Maker Express.

Sam had arrived via ambulance to the ER of this hospital three hours ago. But, after cutting away the blood soaked bandages the doctors were shocked to find nothing but long lines of already healing scabs. His vitals had all but returned to normal, with the exception of a slightly low blood pressure and elevated heartrate from adrenaline. The ER doctors had insisted on keeping him there overnight for observation, not knowing what the hell else to do, especially after two eye witnesses and two paramedics claiming that he had all but gone into full cardiac arrest from hypovolemia from stab wounds only hours before.

"It's called playing the part Sam," Dean said. "There was no way to explain your miraculous recovery without turning you into a religious relic."

"Yeah I know," Sam said in agreement, turning off the television after he reached the Weather Channel for the second time. "It's just – hospitals man." He looked towards his brother with an understanding he knew they both shared.

"Brother, I know-" Dean agreed. "But I'm springing you after Third Shift rotation. So in the meantime, how about you _relax?_ Watch some TV, eat some free food-"

"What, Mystery _Jello?"_

"I'll sneak up one of your prissy soup and salad combinations from the hospital cafeteria, whinny little Bitch," Dean returned. "Be thankful I talked the doctors out of placing that catheter."

Sam laughed dryly. "Fucking Jerk-"

"Yes I am," Dean returned, which made Sam's dry laughter continue for another moment. "What'd you write anyway? Safkhet's book went up in flames, _realistically_ it should've undone you stabbing her."

"Dýnami machaíri ametávliti." Sam said: "Greek for: _The Knife Force Unchanged._ Ancient Greek was one of the languages on the Rosetta Stone that was used to translate Ancient Egyptian, I figured it might work in place of hieroglyphics. So even if the book went up in flames, Safkhet didn't get a resurrection."

"You're telling me you're nerdy enough to translate _The Knife Force Unchanged_ to ancient _Greek_ half bleeding to death; but not enough to write something to save yourself?"

"There wasn't time. I had to choose."

"So you chose _death?"_

"I chose _you-_ Dean, she was going to _kill_ you."

"From where I was standing it was your blood all over the bathroom walls man! You were also the one screaming fucking bloody _murder_ in there!" Dean returned.

"It doesn't matter-"

"It sure as hell matters to me Sam!-"

" _Excuse me."_

The simultaneous knock on the opened hospital doorway and the sound of the voice ended both brother's words mid-argument. They both turned to see a brunette nurse in pink scrubs standing in the doorway.

"Mr. Van Zant. You have another visitor-" Beside the nurse was Viola, dressed in a gray cardigan and jeans which made her look younger than she did at the diner.

The nurse surveyed the scene inside the hospital room with a practiced eye, sensing something was off. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Sam shot the briefest of glances at Dean who didn't say anything in return. "Everything's great."

The nurse eyed him like she found the lie buried in his answer. "Do you need anything for pain?"

"I'm good-" Sam reassured her.

"You sure?"

"Positive," Sam said holding up his hand and hitting an even tone that had just enough inflection of reassurance to sway the nurse.

"Page me if that changes," the nurse returned.

"Yes ma'am he will," Dean spoke for Sam, flashing the woman a smile.

The nurse returned the smile before leaving the doorway, leaving Viola still standing there. A brown leather purse hung on her left shoulder and she clutched at it with one hand, looking like she was afraid to step into the room.

She glanced back down the hallway like she was checking to make sure that the nurse had actually left. _"Van Zant? "_ Viola said the name of Sam and Dean's alias. "Isn't that the name of the brothers from Lynard Skynard?"

Dean shot Viola an impressed gaze. "You're a classic rock fan-"

"Saw them at the Knebworth Festival in '74," Viola said.

Dean's eyebrows raised even more, and a glint of a smile came across his face.

"Saw lots of _other_ things there too," Viola went on. "It wasn't Woodstock, but that didn't stop the flow of drugs and sex from running into the streets." Viola bent her head down for a moment to stare at the floor like she was gathering up her resolve. "Thought I saw every manner of strange and freaky there was to see in the world that weekend," she finally stepped through the door and into the room. "Until you boys came into the diner last night."

Sam met the waitress' eyes. "Viola-"

"Cause _whatever_ I saw, it sure as hell wasn't the same 13-year-old girl I fed pies to for a damn year! -" She was only five foot four so the height distance between her standing and Sam sitting up in a bed wasn't that far apart. So when she looked at him, their gaze was almost level. "I helped save your life, baby. And I don't expect a pay-off for that, but I expect an _explanation."_

"Trust us, you don't want to know," Dean returned and stood up from the chair beside Sam's bed. "The less you do, the more you'll sleep at night."

Viola digested Dean's words like she wanted to spit them out on the floor. "Is that what you boys do? Kill monsters like that and never sleep?" When neither Dean nor Sam answered Viola conceded this to be her answer, and face screwed up at the idea of something impossible and almost sad at the same time. "What was she really? Safi?"

"She was a goddess," Sam answered her truthfully. She was right, she _had_ helped save his life, and this was the very least he owed her.

" _A goddess?"_ Viola repeated, huge dips of disbelief in her words.

"Ancient Egyptian and very powerful," Sam continued.

"She coming back?" Viola stared at Sam dead on.

"We took care of it," Sam said.

"I don't believe a damn word of this! Why would a _goddess_ even be hanging out in a little town like ours?"

"Lady, we wish we knew, it would make killing things like her a hell of a lot easier." Dean returned. "But Sam's right, we took care of it. That bitch isn't coming back- _ever._ "

"And what do I do if she doesn't listen?" Viola questioned.

"You call us," Sam returned, scribbling down his cell number on a pad of paper lying on the hospital night stand. He ripped the paper off the pad and held it out to Viola. "And we'll handle it."

Viola walked over to the bed and took the yellow paper from Sam's hand, looking down at the numbers written there before folding it up and placing it into the pocket of her sweater. "Hopefully she listens for a bit. Cause baby, right now, you look like you couldn't handle a spoon."

Sam's laugh was quiet in the back of his throat, and a moment later Viola stepped over to the bed and gave him a kiss on the side of his head. She moved away without another word, walking out of the room.

 **xxxxxXxxxx**

11:20 PM

"Mr. Van Zant?" the nurse crept quietly into the room, Sam's chart in front of her. She had just gotten a shift report from her coworker. Stabbing victim doing amazingly well considering how paramedics described him at the scene. That was on the record- _off_ the record, he'd been described as something you wouldn't kick out of bed for dying, and could start a fire with his eyes alone.

So she took a few extra seconds to prepare her warmest, friendliest smile before quietly turning on the dimmest overhead light in the room to not wake up her patient.

Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw the hospital bed was empty with the covers thrown back, and a small line of blood on the sheets from where the IV had been ripped out.

 **xxxxXxxx**

Sam opened his eyes to the well-worn insides of the Impala. He sat up from where he was stretched out across the backseat. The windshield was blocked by the blackness of the raised hood, and he could just make out Dean's arm with a rolled up shirt sleeve moving a socket wrench over something in the engine block. He opened the left back door and lowered his long legs onto to grass gone half brown from winter. When he stepped out of the car, the air was frigid. He bent back inside and pulled out his jacket that he had rolled up to use as a pillow, shaking it out and sliding it over his gray t-shirt.

The Impala was parked about four feet back from the shoulder of a two lane road. The sky was a silky blackness hung with a few stars, and the faint sounds of traffic from a not too far off interstate echoed in the darkness.

Sam shut the door and the noise raised Dean's head from out of the hood, his face lit in a glow from the shop light clipped to the hood of the car.

"Hey-" Dean sized Sam up as he approached him over the grass and dirt. "You okay?"

"I'm good," Sam said, leaning down to look inside the engine. "What's up?"

"Battery acid corroded the connection wires."

"Did you replace them?"

"Yeah, but the block still feels hot. Think it's best to just let the battery cool down overnight, and start her up in the morning." Dean removed the light from off the hood and turned it off, dropping the hood slowly back in place, and walked around to the Impala's trunk.

"Did you sleep?" Dean's voice called out to Sam from underneath the trunk lid.

"For a few hours I think," Sam responded. "What time is it?"

"Just past four," Dean's voice followed his path back towards the front of the car. "You sacked out a few minutes after we left the hospital." A brown bottle of beer was in each hand. He held one out to Sam.

"Thanks," Sam took the beer from Dean, twisting the top open; foam bubbled up the neck of the bottle. He took a drink, leaning against the metal bumper of the car, and heard a creak a few seconds later as Dean mimicked his actions.

"I think Viola had a thing for you," Dean took a drink from his beer, glancing up at the stars that showed themselves past the shadowed canopy of trees overhead.

"Dean, she was just grateful."

" _Grateful?_ " Dean shot Sam a look. "Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?"

Sam's returning gaze reached Dean even through the darkness. " _Dude."_

"Alright, I'm done," Dean swallowed another mouthful of beer. "Tell ya what, I'm never going to look at a spiral notebook or a teenager the same way again."

Sam huffed a dry laugh. "Yeah, me neither."

Dean turned to him with a sizing up manner look, one that went beyond the matter of his brother's recent physical injuries, even if they were no longer visible. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah man, I'm fine," Sam said, looking down at the clean jeans he had thrown on in rapid speed as they jail broke from the hospital. "I mean you heard the doctors, according to them I'm a walking miracle."

"Yeah, you're a regular Jesus Christ Superstar-"

Sam laughed again.

"-But you know what I'm talking about."

The laughter ended in Sam's throat just as quickly as it began and he was left simply staring at Dean.

"The stuff Safkhet said about the Cage, about Lucifer-" Dean rested his beer bottle against his knee. "She didn't bend reality to write that did she?"

The words that Sam wanted to say came out instead as an open mouthed breath of air that lost itself in the night air.

Dean watched this silence. "When were you planning to tell me?"

"I tried to remember?" Sam said. "Back on the Nacsayer hunt-"

"You said you were getting visions from _God_ Sam, not PTSD nightmares from the Cage. Did it ever cross your mind that those memories could kill you?"

"They haven't so far."

"That's not funny Sam-"

"And I'm not laughing. But what am I supposed to do? Ignore them? This isn't Lucifer hallucinating his way into my brain. These are _actual_ memories of being _there_ with him. And-"

"And what?"

"And it might give us some clue to how to fight the Darkness," Sam's voice became still for a moment, like a wave dying out from lack of wind. "Lucifer was _there_ when she was created. Maybe these memories will show us how she can be destroyed."

"Or they could _destroy you_ in the process Sam, no," Dean's voice was a blow of forged steel. " _Absolutely not."_

"I let her _out_ Dean; _I'm_ the one who had Rowena translate the spell from the Book of the Damned to remove the Mark!"

"And I'm the one who had the Mark in the first place!" Dean stood up from his leant position against the Impala's hood. "I'm the one the Darkness follows around like a love sick teenager! And I sure as hell am not letting my little brother bare his neck out for Satan!"

"So what, then?"

"We find another way-"

"And what if there isn't one?" Sam threw his still full beer bottle onto the low cropped dry grass and it shattered into pieces against a flat stone. "What if this is our only chance? Dean- the Darkness is primordial-she won't stop, we have to put her down, _whatever_ the cost!"

"Not if the cost is _you_ Sam!"

"Dean-!"

"I said we're finding another way! Fight me on this all you want, but I'm still never going to be on board with this!"

"Because you know another way?"

"Because I know _you_! I know that this whole goddess induced Lucifer flashback took more out of you than you're going to tell me; hell I even know you're calling me a bitch in your mind right now. But I also know you're _scared_ , Sam. What happened to you in there-"

"I said it doesn't matter-"

"It _matters_ Sam!" Dean's voice echoed into the night, and his beer bottle was sent hurtling into the grass against the same stone as Sam's. His chin dropped to his chest from the weight of his anger before his gaze returned to his brother, who was watching him with eyes half hidden by the darkness of the night. "If this whole talking with Lucifer thing is the only way to get a jump on the Darkness; fine. But you're not _doing_ it alone Sam, not after what he did to you-"

"Dean he's _Lucifer_ \- whatever he did- _"_ Sam looked off into the distance towards the faint echo of traffic that hid itself from them in the night. "I know what I signed up for. And if I have to do it again-I'm not saying I _want_ to-"

Dean glanced back at Sam with a look of disbelief. "And I'm saying you're not. – Sammy back at that bar-" Dean had to swallow away the bile from the memory of his brother on his knees, waiting for Dean to kill him, _ready_ for Dean to kill him, "I swore that I wasn't letting you martyr yourself for a cause because you think it's your fault. It's _not_ your fault, Sam! Blame lies equally with both of us. We do this, we do this _together-"_

"And what if it doesn't work? Look at what happened with Safkhet-"

"We took care of her Sammy."

"Yeah _barely,_ and Lucifer has a whole lot more juice than some minor Egyptian god! Even in his Cage something could go wrong!"

"Then you and I will handle it, Sam. You're not some whiney man-child who gets all twisted up inside and prissy over a damn cold! You beat the Devil before man. And we're going to juice every last drop of information from his scaly ass about the Darkness, and we're going to send her back to the Nothing she came from."

"And what if it doesn't turn out our way? Dean, what if there's no coming back from it all?" Sam seemed to wait for the explanation that would exist in the crazy ass stories the Goddess was making fun of. The one where Dean would say something that would instantly wrap things up with a joke and a neat bow and a perfect fade out set to music.

Even in the darkness that existed without the capitalization Dean's gaze reached Sam. "Then I go down swinging with my brother."

Sam had lost his beer to the rock he threw it on so there was no distraction to hold; there was only him and Dean and the real life that existed between them.

 **xxxxXxxx**

"Who will love you?

Who will fight?

Who will fall far behind?"

~Bon Iver _Skinny Love_

 **xxxxXxxx**

 **End.**

Safhket is the Ancient Egyptian Goddess of writing. She is credited with being a record keeper and scribe, and was frequently depicted as wearing a dress of cheetah or leopard hide. The original myth had her holding a palm stem instead of a staff, which she used for tallying up the year, but I changed it to a golden notebook and stylus for the purpose of this fic.

This originally started out as a pure parody fic, but I find that I liked it better balanced out with the "reality" of the show.

R/R please.


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